Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Arrogant, racist Romney could not believe that the President actually remembered accurately his own statement in the Rose Garden labeling the Libyan incident an act of terrorism. And still didn't believe it til Candy Crowley confirmed it. (He didn't ask if she was married.)

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Turns out, women are a key voting bloc in the upcoming election. It's up to us not only to get each other engaged, and voting. but to demand credible commitments that address our concerns.

Here are our choices heading into the political conventions:

A Republican Party fueled with unprecedented gushers of corporate cash that draws political life support from the medieval wing of several fundamentalist religions, whose fantastical beliefs about women's biology are rooted in their ironclad devotion to patriarchy.

A Democratic Party also overly dependent on the parasitic finance sector, that is now reaching back to the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act of 2009 to symbolize its commitment to women's economic empowerment. It depends for political fuel in no small part on the indisputable fact that the Republicans are profoundly scary.

Polls show the 2 running neck in neck.

In fact, this election offers women a clear choice. The Republican platform would make criminals of the 30% of American women who've had an abortion (including me, once because of a fetal anomaly diagnosed in my second trimester). The Affordable Care Act, which Paul Ryan has voted repeatedly to repeal, assures more affordable birth control and extends Medicare's financial health, in contrast to Ryan's proposal to privatize it.

But it's not enough to debunk the opposition's lies, or to point out that they rely on stoking fear and anger. Some recent polls of women who are not politically active show that they do react viscerally to the demeaning insults slung by decision-makers they perceive as "mean, old, white men." But they are living difficult lives, bounded not only by state legislatures that snatch away their birth control and penalize them for their reproductive decisions, but by extensive financial hardship. One quote: "I'm happy this month that I haven't had to sell plasma to feed my children."

So here are some things to call for in Charlotte:

1. An iron clad commitment to preserving and protecting Social Security and Medicare. These two programs form the bedrock of women's financial security as we age. They are under attack explicitly by the Republicans. And too frequently for comfort, our side also periodically lip synchs the lies about the needs to reform these "entitlements." Let's hear Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid and future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirm that the programs are solvent, and that they will not compromise on preserving and improving these programs.

2. It's great that Nancy Keenan of NARAL and Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood will be speaking. Women's rights to make their own decisions about their reproductive health are fundamental to our economic and personal wellbeing, including access to legal, affordable birth control and abortion. We hope their introductions will include words of support from HHS and the Surgeon General.

3. Finally: Lots of women. On the podium, speaking, in charge, active, visible, and vocal. Women of all races, and for that matter, candidates for races. We know who the top ticket nominees are. Let's give a boost to the EMILY's List all-star roster of pro-choice Democratic women candidates, people like Maggie Hassan for governor of New Hampshire, Congressional candidates like Grace Meng, Christie Vilsack, Val Demings, and Tammy Duckworth, and Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin for Senate, and of course, incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill. Since Canadian-born former governor Jennifer Granholm can't run for president, nominate her now for a Cabinet post, if she wants one, and give her air time.

We're going to write checks, emails and op eds, as well as getting out the vote. We have power. Let's recognize and exercise it.

Do we need to do more to improve and expand Medicare? Indeed. But Ryan would double down on disaster.

On Medicare for All, he had this exchange with reporter Sam Husseini, published June 13, 2011:

Sam Husseini: If you’re a fiscal conservative and you want to provide a safety net, why wouldn’t you be for something like a single-payer health care system?

Paul Ryan: I think a single-payer health care system would be a disaster for people who need health-care the most. I think it would cause rationing, waiting lines. I think it would be a fiscal house of cards, I think it would help accelerate a national debt crisis and hurt the economy.

Husseini: Wouldn’t it save a lot of money and cover everybody?
Ryan: Absolutely not. I totally and fundamentally disagree with it. I believe that you can have affordable access to healthcare for all Americans, including people with pre-existing conditions, without a government takeover of the healthcare sector. If we actually have government-run healthcare, what I think you’ll have is government managing, government-rationing healthcare. I think that will be a fiscal disaster, I think that it would accelerate a debt crisis that would slow our economy and take jobs and economic growth from those people that need it the most, which are people who are out of work.

Ryan: There are three facts about medicare that you simply can’t dispute: 10,000 seniors are retiring everyday with fewer workers going into the workforce to pay for them; healthcare costs are skyrocketing at about four times the rate of inflation, which threatens medicare’s ability to give affordable care; and number three, the non-partisan experts agree that Medicare is going bankrupt. So Medicare’s status quo is bankruptcy and that threatens healthcare not only for current seniors but obviously for future seniors, so I believe a patient-centered healthcare system — reforms that put the patient at the center of the healthcare system, not the government — are the best for people who need healthcare and they’re best for the economy, and they’re the best way to avert a debt crisis.

Husseini: But isn’t the problem with healthcare fundamentally the corporate structure? I mean your biggest funders are a who’s who — Northwestern Mutual –

Ryan: — Government-run healthcare doesn’t work. Wherever we’ve seen government-run healthcare, it’s failed.
Husseini: You think that people are worse off in France and Canada?

Ryan: I think we’re worse off if we go with a government healthcare system that will cost us jobs, it will increase our deficit and our debt and I do believe, and I put ideas on the table that show, that we can get to a patient-centered healthcare system that helps create jobs, that helps get healthcare costs under control, and gives everybody affordable healthcare coverage for everyone regardless of income or pre-existing conditions.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

You won historic legislation in 2010. Your advisors told you
to change the subject and campaign on the economy.You lost the mid-term elections, big time.

You won a victory in the Supreme Court this week. The same
advisors who counseled you then are at it again. I don't know what economic
accomplishments they think you should run on.I know a few things about what you've done in health care.

The Affordable Care Act instituted system reforms in how we
pay doctors, and how they practice medicine, that are reducing the actual cost
of health care. This is tremendous news. It is not showing up yet in reduced insurance
premiums.But your law makes it possible
to do so.

Health care spending growth has
slowed from double digits to 4% or lower. Further, hospital admissions are
down, even among insured people. Writing in Health Affairs in April Kenneth
Kaufman states that"independent
of the recession, other fundamental and structural changes are likely
contributing to the flattening of the cost curve, and further, these changes
have the potential to significantly alter the curve’s path into the future."

Kaufman quotes Jeff Goldsmith,
Ph.D., President of Health Futures, Inc., who "suggests that the makeup
and organization of the nation’s physicians is one source of the slowing cost
growth. Physicians of the past 30 years typically practiced in solo or small
group practices. Under the fee-for-service system, they were incentivized to
work long hours, see as many patients as they possibly could, and buy into
labs, ambulatory clinics, and specialty hospitals. As a result, they tended to
be high users of inpatient and outpatient services. These more entrepreneurial
physicians are now reaching retirement age and many tens of thousands are
opting to exit the workforce. Replacing them are physicians of a new
generation, which has different work and lifestyle expectations. For many
younger physicians, owning a practice is not as important as having time to
spend with the family and a steady, predictable income.

"One effect is that physicians
have sought employment by hospitals...and in larger group practices, many of
which now employ hundreds of doctors. They are practicing medicine in ways that
remove utilization and cost from the system. Protocols to reduce variation in
care delivery, chronic disease management, case management, and other approaches
are increasingly being adopted by physicians nationwide. Larger practices owned
by hospitals and other entities will have the capital and human resources
required to successfully reduce care costs through such approaches, slowing
health-spending growth going forward."

Other efforts include "moving
from an activity-based business model that incentivizes utilization of services
to a value-based model that incentivizes population health management across
the continuum of care,"

Why aren't we seeing lower
insurance premiums, then?

First, the insurance industry isn't
yet sufficiently regulated.The
Exchanges starting in 2014 will make regulation more likely.States can use the ACA now to regulate on their own.A progressive new Congress could create a
competing public option, and allow states to create entirely public financing
systems like Medicare.Secondly, the
system reforms are not yet universal.In
fact, some physicians are turning to "boutique" practices where they
can take only wealthy patients who will continue to pay whatever high fees the
docs require to maintain their incomes.

The political good news is that the
opposition program will clearly hurl us right back into the days of
double-digit health care cost inflation, while cutting seniors and others out
of access to care. Surely impressive information for the American people.

The Ryan/Romney proposals would
turn Medicare and Medicaid into voucher systems.Every person would get a coupon worth a
certain dollar amount, and go out and look for the best deal from doctors,
hospitals, and drug companies. This
means bringing the kind negotiations from the car dealership to the hospital
every time we and our families get sick.For most rational Americans, not an appealing prospect.It is certainly the end of Medicare.

The opposition hounded Dr. Don
Berwick out of his position as administrator of the Medicare program, precisely
because of his expertise in the kind of system reforms that are now working.

Mr. President, you need to stand
with the many patients already benefiting from the improved coverage and
consumer protections provided by the ACA, and fight for a second term that will
propel us forward towards universal, affordable health care.

Monday, April 2, 2012

On the heels of the Supreme Court decision on June 15, 2012, invalidating the individual mandate provisions of the health care reform law, the President and Congress took swift action to implement a Single Payer system. Asked to define a single payer system, the President said, "Well, you know, sort of like Medicare."

Long time health policy analyst and reform advocate Ellen Shaffer noted that the surprising transition had occurred subsequent to the following events:

Massive demonstrations now known as the Grrl/Geezer/PanEthnic Spring erupted throughout the country, responding to the failure of the U.S. political system to take effective action in the face of shifts in the global economy, devastating losses of jobs and income security, demographic changes, and the degradation of human and environmental health.

Shocked by racially motivated police actions, the laser-like focus of increasingly unhinged legislators on humiliating women in the name of ending "government tyranny," and the closure of community colleges, the cross-generational coalition used phone trees and social media to call on the Fed Up across the political spectrum to exercise personal responsibility by showing up and uniting.

The uprising derailed widespread expectations that a negative decision on the mandate would likely add momentum to the information-free right wing, relegating further effective health care reform to the back burner for decades.

The reform program demanded identifying and implementing the best practices from around the world for economic innovation and growth compatible with human health and environmental sustainability, including models in the U.S., Germany, Brazil, Argentina, China, and India, and an end to energy dependence on oil. The new health care system will draw from the effective Cuban model of primary care available in schools, communities and workplaces, using U.S. information technology to coordinate care, implemented by professionals in non-hierarchical categories, who reflect the populations of their communities. Health care and education - including for health professions - will be entirely publicly subsidized, and housing prices stabilized at 1990 levels.

Communications were transferred to the Stewart/Colbert/Maddow network, in partnership with Our Bodies Ourselves, radio KKCR /Kauai and radio KPOO/San Francisco. The Defense Department was eliminated, with the resulting financial windfall redirected to the lifetime care of military veterans.

The top .01% of the U.S. wealthy were given the option of life at sea with video simulation games stroking their egos, and periodic air-lifts of supplies; or 5 years of pro-bono work as classroom assistants in newly revitalized elementary schools.

Opposition to the health care program was promptly abandoned by the health insurance, hospital, medical, drug and information technology industries, as well as by the labor movement and its trust funds and by the Chamber of Commerce. Karen Ignani announced her retirement, and PNHP admitted that it wasn't really all Liz Fowler's fault, energizing an explosion of critical and strategic thinking.

Monday, March 26, 2012

The Supreme Court hears challenges to the Affordable Care Act this week. Below, the Court’s links to hearing the proceedings; and a summary of the questions at issue from the NY Times. Please use the Comments space below to post your own succinct, relevant and illuminating comments on this historic debate, and links to other resources.

The Court will hear argument in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cases on March 26, 27, and 28. Because of the extraordinary public interest in those cases, the Court will provide the audio recordings and transcripts of the oral arguments on an expedited basis through the Court’s Website.

The Court will post the audio recordings and unofficial transcripts as soon as the digital files are available for uploading to the Website. The audio recordings and transcripts of the March 26-28 morning sessions should be available no later than 2 p.m. The recording and transcript of the March 28 afternoon session should be available no later than 4 p.m.

A Guide to the Supreme Court Challenges to Obama’s Health Care Law

Over three days starting March 26, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in an appeal from a decision largely ruling for 26 states, a business group and several individuals who contend that the 2010 health care law, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, is unconstitutional. Related Article »

The Question: Is it too early to consider this case since the health law’s penalties do not start until 2014?

The central provision of the health care law, often called the individual mandate, requires most Americans to obtain health insurance or, starting in 2014, face a penalty.

A 19th-century law, the Anti-Injunction Act, forbids challenges to tax assessments until they are due, barring suits “for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax.” The Supreme Court had interpreted the term “tax” very broadly for purposes of the law, and it has suggested that the act is “jurisdictional,” meaning that courts are powerless to hear suits barred by it even if both sides agree to proceed.

If the Supreme Court considers the individual mandate a tax under the Anti-Injunction Act, it may conclude that it cannot hear a challenge until April 15, 2015, when the first penalties become due.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a dissenting judge on the District of Columbia Circuit agreed that the act requires courts to defer consideration of the challenge to the individual mandate.

The federal government initially argued that the act applied to bar the challenges, but it has changed its mind and now asks that the suits be allowed to proceed, agreeing with its opponents on this point. The states challenging the law say the act does not apply to them, as opposed to individuals, in any event. Because all of the parties agree that the Supreme Court may hear the case, the justices appointed a lawyer to argue that the act applies.

Among the questions the Supreme Court is likely to consider in connection with the act are whether a challenge to the mandate is the same thing as a challenge to how it is enforced, whether the penalties imposed by the health care law are taxes and whether the act is an inviolable jurisdictional command to courts.

Congress remains free, now or later, to amend the act to allow challenges to the health care law.

Date of Hearing: March 26
Time Allotted: 90 minutes

40 min.: Robert A. Long, friend of the court, appointed to argue that the suit is barred.
30 min.: Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. says the challenges may go forward.
20 min.: Gregory G. Katsas, representing the National Federal of Independent Business and other private parties, agrees with the government on this point.

The federal government argues that Congress was authorized to enact the individual mandate under two provisions of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — its power to regulate commerce and its power to tax. The leading Supreme Court precedents support the mandate, too, the government says, because the health care law addresses a pressing national problem that is economic in nature.

Opponents of the law say that the requirement to buy a product or service is unprecedented, regulates inactivity rather than activity and would allow Congress essentially unlimited power to intrude on individual freedom. They say the government cannot articulate a principle that would limit its power were the law upheld.

The Question: If the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional, must the rest of the health law fall as well?

Should the Supreme Court strike down the individual mandate, it must decide whether some or all of the balance of the law must fall as well.

Though the lower-court ruling issued by the 11th Circuit determined that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority in enacting the individual mandate, it said the balance of the law survived. Neither side agrees. The government argues that two provisions requiring insurance companies to accept all applicants at fixed rates are intertwined with the mandate and must fall along with it.

Opponents of the law say the mandate is its keystone, meaning that no part of the law can survive without it. Here, too, the Supreme Court has appointed a lawyer to argue a position that neither party advances – that the mandate may be surgically removed if the court holds it unconstitutional.

Date of Hearing : March 28
Time Allotted: 90 minutes

30 min.: Paul D. Clement, representing 26 states, argues that the entire law must fall.
30 min.: Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler argues that most of the law should survive, even if the mandate is struck down.
30 min.: H. Bartow Farr III, friend of the court, appointed to defend the ruling that struck down only the mandate.

The Question: Was Congress entitled to impose conditions on the states in expanding the Medicaid program?

The sprawling 2010 law contains many provisions not directly in front of the court. But the justices did agree to hear a challenge to a provision relating to Medicaid, a challenge by the 26 states that argues that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority by expanding the eligibility and coverage thresholds that states must adopt to remain eligible to participate in the joint federal-state program that provides health care to poor and disabled people.

The problem, they say, is that Congress did not tie the law’s new conditions only to new federal money but rather made the new terms a condition of continued participation in Medicaid, threatening states with the loss of all federal Medicaid funds.

The federal government argues that such shifting conditions are routine in all sorts of federal programs and that the Medicaid program itself specified at the outset that the rules could change.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

From "A Time to Kill," 1996. Matt McConaughey as lawyer Jake Tyler Brigance, presents the summation defending his black client for attacking his daughter's rapists:

Jake Tyler Brigance: [in his summation, talking about Tonya Hailey] I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you all to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they've killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her. Now comes the hanging. They have a rope. They tie a noose. Imagine the noose going tight around her neck and with a sudden blinding jerk she's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking. They don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The majority
of Americans believe that women should have access to basic health care
services and that decisions about reproductive health care including family
planning and abortion should be left to each person.But in 2011, extremist politicians elected with
a mandate to fix the current economic crisis instead chose to divert the
public's attention with policy battles about these private decisions. They have
declared a “War on Women.”The U.S.
House of Representatives and state legislatures have particularly focused on
eliminating access to basic health care services and contraception as well as
abortion, with severe consequences for the most vulnerable.

Banners on Market Streetin San Franciscoaim to spark conversations and to help build
momentum and solidarity among supporters of women’s rights, equality and autonomy
and access to comprehensive health care, including reproductive health care
services. see photos:

During Trust
Women Week, January 20-27, we will engage the public in a Virtual March, with
MoveOn, to express their support online for reproductive health, rights and
justice.

The Trust
Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign is a coalition of 42 national and local
organizations. We include the groups represented on the banners: the Bay Area
Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR), Catholics for Choice, NARAL-ProChoice
California, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific, and SisterSong/Trust Black Women[SY1].

The main
banner messages are:

·Her
Decision, Her Health

Most women spend about 30 years trying not to
become pregnant and only two years trying to become pregnant.Whether and when to have a child is a
personal decision that every individual has the right to make.A healthy pregnancy is more likely for women
who have access to basic health care services.

·U.S.
Out of My Uterus

In 2011,
a record numbers of bills were introduced or passed by state legislatures and
the U.S. House of representatives restricting women's access to: basic health
care services, family planning, and safe abortion care.It has been called a "War on Women,"
Many women are shocked and dismayed by these attacks and want to send a strong
message to policy-makers: Government should stay out of making decisions about
what happens in my womb. I have self-determination, autonomy.

·Fix
the Economy, Support My Autonomy

Many people are suffering due to the downturn
in the economy, and are looking to our elected officials for real solutions. Too
many policy-makers focus on whipping up divisions on social issues(such as restricting
women’s rights) instead of creating jobs. Government has an important role in
supporting and assuring the conditions for a healthy life. In these hard
economic times, women's ability to conduct productive, independent lives depends
on government support for fixing the economy, and providing the education needed
to secure rewarding jobs and affordable health care, including reproductive
health care.

·Reproductive
Rights are Human Rights

If women do not have the ability to decide
what goes on in their bodies, then they are second class citizens.Human rights describe the obligations of
governments to create the conditions for all people to be as healthy as
possible.This includes respecting
individual rights about our reproductive health and assuring access to
affordable and comprehensive reproductive health care services.

San Francisco is Pro-Choice

The majority of
this country supports reproductive rights and feels that the decision about
abortion should be left to the individual.

Partner banners:

Catholics for Choice

Legal Abortion is a
Human Right: United Nations - BACORR

Freedom, Privacy,
Choice - NARAL California

San Francisco Supports Planned Parenthood Shasta/Pacific

We Trust Black Women,
Do You? - Sistersong

for background on women's reproductive health and on reproductive justice, see: